Really enjoyed the ride yesterday. Amazing how superior direct individual instruction is to written explanations.

I believe the above statement is the reason Trials is addictive, when you meet people that will even practice all weekend with you, even though they want to beat you come Sunday (if you are in same class).

I believe the above statement is the reason Trials is addictive, when you meet people that will even practice all weekend with you, even though they want to beat you come Sunday (if you are in same class).

So true!

I really like the aspect of trials where there is near-complete absence of cut throat and let the air out of the other guy's tires. I think that is because of the ego-busting nature of the sport, where the pit racer or puffed ego types tend to get filtered out way early, or not attracted to the sport to begin with.

So, I look forward to you kicking my ass in the future, and what I'd give to have you around to practice with! too bad were a whole state apart my friend.

Practice, practice, practice... I recommend figure 8's on the side of a slight hill. Once you master a gentle incline, find a steeper hill... trialsmasters know no limit to steepness for this simple problem.

There is so much going on at the inflection point of the curve (the point at which you are not going down nor up). Initially, your body is back to put some weight on the rear tire (and to keep you from going over the bars) as you go downhill and then you have to get your weight forward to go back up the hill - all while maintaining proper peg pressure throughout the turn.

When you are learning, exaggerating your body position (or what feels like too much) may help. Ass way outside. Outside elbow bent. Inside elbow slightly bent, but something that feels more like you're straight-arming a defender in football...

I've chanted mantras - squat fool... bend the outside elbow... push away (from the inside), weight back, forward... but truly this is all for us amateurs as once mastered it just looks like magic, i.e. nothing at all. Body is simply centered at all times, peg pressure is perfect and most of us just shake our heads at the example of what looks like physics defied.

Not sure how Beene did it, but just like the turns we're talking about (and this thread) Beene kills it.

Well for the first time I have had trouble with attaching a video link and the thought and work of the latest posting has been removed. It killed whatever you said I killed (I assume you read it before it went pfft?) The better the post, the risk of pfft if not written off line

I wish I had saved the text. I too could not enter the edit mode. Any way the text can be rescued?

This was the first time I had trouble with a video link from Smugmug. I'll try to figure it out.

By the way, I love this forum because Edit stay always active. That's great for refining the quality of submissions!

Practice practice is right!

Hey I forgot to mention something. I demonstrated to KrAzyOSU passing through the "inflection point of the curve" in an "exaggerated body position." I was standing on my outside peg with my inside leg over the bike on the outside hanging behind the leg, thus heavily weighting the outside peg. It may sound silly, but when you have only "one leg to stand on" it forces the conditions described by dhubbard422.

Another way to think of it is vectors. Vectors are arrows representing a magnitude and direction of force. While you correctly initiate a turn weighting the inside peg, what you want through the inflection point is the body center of mass (BCM) vector pointing toward the center of the earth - gravity - to pass through the tire contact patches. On a leaned bike, the only way you get that is ass out and the outside leg quad muscles burning a little. The inside leg should have only a small proportion of your weight on it. The outside elbow bend allows your BCM to move to the outside.

If you are weighting the inside leg significantly, you may be in fact riding with the ass in and straight up on the bike and doing the fast off road mistake of relying on 'centrifugal' forces via speed or accelerations - changes in speed (throttle on-off) - to do the Novice wobble through turns. The test: If you can't stop at any point in a slow turn and stay balanced, you haven't yet achieved what several of us are trying hard to describe in this thread.

Here is a video of a training session of a nameless rider (unless he wishes to be named) from very early in his trials experience. The backdrop is the chicken coop area of my Buffalo Dream Ranch. As a very experienced off roader, the rider brought with him into trials the tendency to ride straight up on the bike in turn and to rely on speed and throttle to maintain equilibrium in turns. Anything upsetting forward progress (in this case rear tire clips a rock) results in a dab to the inside.

This is a test. I edited my message above to say I was not going to include the video, and no matter what I did a dialog box said my message was too short and needed at least one character to submit. This is getting nuts.

This is a test. I edited my message above to say I was not going to include the video, and no matter what I did a dialog box said my message was too short and needed at least one character to submit. This is getting nuts.

Haha, I have no idea either. My computer skills are one level above nuts, if we need a cracker, I'll call an Admin.

Good thread. Without time to calculate vectors during the turn, I have settled on three keys mantras:

- Buddha belly: steer with your bellybutton! If you are in a proper squat, this magically rotates your shoulders, gets your ass out over the bike and helps you look through the turn, without having to say all three of those things.

- Outside peg - To force myself to get weight off the inside peg I have practiced dangling that inside foot in the air through the turn; forces the weight onto the outside peg; if the back tire sloughs a bit downhill, your bike and body will follow it

- Look through the turn - of course.

I seem to remember Ryan's video saying that at the apex of the turn you should take the steering a little off full lock and lean it a bit more inside, which will avoid pushing the front tire, but still maintain the turning radius.